Fort Ripley was a United States Army outpost on the upper Mississippi River in north-central Minnesota from 1848 to 1877. It was situated near government agencies for the Ho-Chunk and Ojibwe. By its very presence, however, the fort spurred immigration into the area by whites. The post, initially named Fort Marcy, was briefly renamed Fort Gaines and in 1850 was renamed again after Brigadier General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley, a distinguished soldier from the War of 1812. It was the second major military fort established in what would become Minnesota, after Fort Snelling in 1819. Fort Ripley was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 for its state-level significance in the themes of historical archaeology and military history. It was nominated for its status as Minnesota's second major military post and for its role in maintaining peace and enabling white settlement in Central Minnesota. Camp Ripley, a training facility operated by the Minnesota National Guard, was established in 1929. It includes the site of Fort Ripley and was named in its memory. The nearby city of Fort Ripley, Minnesota, was also named after the outpost.
Description
Fort Ripley typified remote army posts during the mid-19th century. The buildings were wooden, facing a quadrangle. It was on a navigable river and an important supply route. It was geographically remote from European-American population centers, but Native Americans lived nearby.
History
Fort Ripley was built because the Ho-Chunk had been moved from northeastern Iowa to a new reservation near Long Prairie, Minnesota, necessitating a military post nearby to guard the reservation and administer annuity payments. The government also hoped that the Ho-Chunk, and the fort, would serve as a buffer between the Eastern Dakota and Ojibwe, who were warring. Construction began in November 1848. In April 1849, Company A of the 6th Infantry Regiment arrived to take up quarters under the command of Captain John Blair Smith Todd. With occasional exceptions, daily life at Fort Ripley was uneventful. The geographic isolation, summer mosquitoes, and long, cold winters challenged everyone on post. The fort watched over the oxcart trains across the river traveling the Woods Trail on their way between the Selkirk Settlement in British North America and Saint Paul in Minnesota Territory. Twice each year, the soldiers marched to the Long Prairie Agency to supervise government annuity payments of money and goods to the Ho-Chunk and then did the same for the Ojibwe at the Crow Wing Agency. In 1855, the Ho-Chunk were forced to move again—this time to a reservation in Blue Earth County, Minnesota. Thinking the post was no longer needed, the army withdrew the garrison in 1857. Almost immediately, disturbances broke out between white immigrants and some Ojibwe, prompting reactivation of the fort. Typical of 19th-century army posts, Fort Ripley's military reservation was huge. It encompassed nearly on the east side of the Mississippi, plus a single square mile on the west side to house the garrison. This unusual configuration, chosen because the Ho-Chunk reservation abutted the west bank of the river, caused much agitation among those who wanted the unused east side opened to homesteaders. The army agreed in 1857 to sell it in public auction, but local farmers, by mutual pact, underbid the property. The Secretary of War annulled the sale. In the meantime, however, many purchasers had begun to build homes and farm the land. The resulting confusion and litigation took 20 years to untangle. Military activity on the post intensified during the American Civil War. Army regulars—sent south to fight Confederates—were replaced by companies detached from Minnesota's volunteer regiments. Despite an undercurrent of mistrust, relations between European-Americans and Ojibwes had largely been peaceful in Minnesota. That nearly changed when the Dakota War of 1862 broke out. Seizing upon that conflict as an opportunity to gain power and leverage for redress of grievances, Ojibwe leader Hole in the Day threatened to launch a simultaneous war in northern Minnesota. Fearful whites in the area flocked to Fort Ripley for protection. Additional soldiers were rushed in and the post was readied for battle. The threat was defused, thanks to cool-headed negotiating and the garrison's strengthened defenses. For the next three years Fort Ripley became a base for western military campaigns that came on the heels of the U.S.-Dakota War. Activity reached its peak during the winter of 1863–1864, when 400 cavalry troops and 500 horses were quartered at the fort. On a sub-zero night in January 1877, fire destroyed three buildings. Believing the post had outlived its purpose, the War Department decided to permanently close it rather than rebuild. The troops moved out that summer. The buildings stood abandoned for many years. By 1910, the ruins of the gunpowder magazine, built of stone, were all that remained.
Legacy
In 1929, the State of Minnesota announced that a new National Guard training site would be built in central Minnesota. The land had to be purchased and, purely by coincidence, the remains of old Fort Ripley were within the proposed boundaries. The new post—Camp Ripley—took its name from the old.
